Ukrainian-language tour launches as Dallas leaders emphasize memory, justice and shared history

By Sharon Wisch-Ray

As a group of high school students gathered downstairs awaiting their tour on the morning of March 26, community leaders met upstairs in the Memorial and Reflection Room at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum for a significant and timely event: the visit of Ukraine’s first lady and the unveiling of a new Ukrainian-language audio tour.

The initiative, now available through the museum’s mobile app, allows visitors to experience Holocaust history and human rights exhibitions in Ukrainian, expanding access for Ukrainian speakers, including refugees who have settled in North Texas.

Mary Pat Higgins, president and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, said the effort reflects the institution’s core mission to make history accessible to all audiences. “This resource will allow Ukrainian speakers … to learn this history in their own language and to engage more meaningfully with the museum’s content,” she said. 

The project grew out of a partnership between AJC and the museum, following outreach from Consul General of Ukraine in Houston Vitalii Tarasiuk, with coordination by AJC Dallas Regional Director Joel Schwitzer, as part of a broader effort to expand Ukrainian-language access at cultural institutions worldwide, an example of how AJC Dallas builds relationships through diplomacy and community engagement that lead to meaningful local initiatives.

The initiative is part of First Lady Olena Zelenska’s international program, which has introduced Ukrainian-language audio guides at more than 100 cultural sites in over 50 countries.

Attendees also heard excerpts from the new tour in Ukrainian, voiced by a Ukrainian actor connected to the museum through Tarasiuk, offering a preview of how visitors will experience Holocaust testimony and exhibits in their native language.

Schwitzer said selecting longtime community leader Stan Rabin to speak on behalf of the Dallas Jewish community was straightforward.

“It was truly one of the easiest discussions I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. 

Among the speakers, Rabin delivered particularly resonant remarks, reflecting a lifetime of leadership across the organizations represented at the gathering.

“Connecting history to lived experience is how empathy and understanding take root,” Rabin said. “As we’re unfortunately seeing in the world today, bigotry can so easily happen again.” 

Rabin, whose mother was born in Ukraine, also spoke personally about his family’s connection to the region and his work with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee supporting vulnerable populations, including Holocaust survivors.

Speaking through a translator, First Lady Olena Zelenska emphasized the urgency of preserving memory in the face of ongoing war and historical trauma.

“Today, like never before, in Ukraine we know that memory matters,” she said. “When everything around you is collapsing, memory is the only thing that sustains you.” 

She warned that the lessons of the Holocaust remain unfinished.

“For a very long time, the world believed that after the tragedy of the Holocaust, humanity learned its lesson,” Zelenska said. “But today Ukraine is forced to prove once again — evil does not go away. It only shifts shape.” 

As Zelenska noted, the initiative is about more than translation — it is about recognition.

“It matters that Ukrainian language will be heard here,” she said. “It is about an opportunity to be heard, an opportunity to understand each other.” 

The collaboration between AJC, the museum and the Consulate General of Ukraine underscores a shared commitment to education, remembrance and the ongoing responsibility to bear witness — both to history and to the present.